For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d

Sat Jun 16 06:09:31 UTC 2007

As someone trained in  phonetics:  "K-flap"???? That part of the back
of the tongue can't flap.  Do you mean a velar fricative?  Or a
uvular trill?  Say what?

Paul Johnston
On Jun 15, 2007, at 9:46 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> Thanks James,
>
> In re-writing English phonetically as I've done with truespel, to
> avoid
> using special symbols, I had to write out all schwas.  I had no
> help in
> determining the sounds of schwas but my own ears and I've had to
> practice
> listening and trust them. The American Heritage Talking Dictionary
> provided
> voiced words to go by, as did m-w.com.  The quest was to make a simple
> phonetic spelling of English using regular keyboard letters. This
> took two
> years.
>
> I found differences between the sounds in spoken words and the
> phonetic
> spellings. No one here seems to dispute the fact that "ity" is
> pronounced
> rather with a d-like sound as I've pointed out.  There is no other
> way to
> simply notate that sound other than with a "d".  English
> dictionaries do not
> have a symbol for an r flap or tap.  It does not exist in Engilsh
> and I find
> it strange that anyone would say that it's a flap when native tongue
> Americans don't go through the tongue motions to make a flap in
> their normal
> phoneme set.
>
> A r-flap is recognizable in many languages.  In truespel book one I
> use
> travlang.com to hear 13 other languages to compare them to Enlglish
> using
> truespel.  The r-flap is the most prevalent non-English phoneme.  I
> spell it
> ~q.  (The k-flap is the next common and it's spelled ~x to use the two
> unneeded letters of the alphabet for spelling English phonemes).
>
> A tap, I suppose, is just a short d.  No doubt many sounds have
> allophones
> (slightly different versions of the same sound usually usually due to
> interference with adjacent phonemes).  But dictionary notation
> doesn't get
> so technical.
>
>
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> See truespel.com - and the 4  truespel books plus "Occasional
> Poems" at
> authorhouse.com.
>
>
>
>
>
>> From: James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
>> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d
>> Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:48:48 -0400
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
>> Subject:      Re: For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------
>>
>> Tom, just so you know, on the matter of whether the sound in the
>> average North American pronunciation of "matter" or "body" or similar
>> words is [d] or a flap or tap, the level of agreement among
>> phoneticians that it's a flap or tap is about on the level of the
>> agreement among geologists that plate tectonics works. It may be that
>> _you_ fully pronounce a [d] on those words, but extensive data show
>> that most North American people in relaxed speech produce a flap or
>> tap (usually a tap, but in words like "murder" a flap is common), and
>> a flap or tap is common for many of these words even in the most
>> formal speech. It's why the British pronunciation of "very" is
>> sometimes represented for Americans as "veddy" -- because Americans
>> would pronounce "veddy", or "Betty" or "heady" or "sweaty", with the
>> same sound many British speakers will use for the r in "very".
>>
>> Certainly the place of articulation is the same and the manner is
>> similar, but the [d] in "do" and "don't" is, for most NA speakers,
>> more strongly articulated than the tap they say in "madder" and
>> "matter". That tap is not an English _phoneme_, it's an English
>> _allophone_, and a very common one. The phoneme is /d/ or /t/, but
>> the allophone is in these cases the tap (or, in some instances, the
>> flap). It would, on the other hand, be wrong to render the citation
>> form of "matter" with a /d/ phoneme, because while nearly everyone in
>> NA says it with a tap normally, it's understood and agreed that in
>> full citation-form pronunciation that consonant would be a [t] and
>> not a [d] -- and "matter" carefully pronounced with a full-value [d]
>> would be heard as "madder," even if preceded by "what's the".
>>
>> You're free to disagree with what's written in textbooks, taught in
>> classes and published in papers, of course, but I just wanted to make
>> sure you knew you weren't actually arguing with just the impressions
>> of one or two individuals on this list. You might find some of the
>> available literature on the subject of interest, and admitting of
>> more detailed material to engage with. Categorical perception can
>> make prima facie acoustical impressions unreliable -- most English
>> speakers have to be trained to be aware of aspiration, for instance,
>> but it's very real. As to your proprioceptive impression, again, you
>> may well fully pronounce a [d] in those words, but I and, I suspect,
>> many others on this list are quite certain that we produce a tap or
>> flap in many of those positions as a matter (not madder) of course.
>>
>> James Harbeck.
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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